


Common Notions

by AMarguerite



Series: Elements [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 19th century French Catholic high school, Boarding School, High School, M/M, Science, not really - Freeform, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 10:13:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3245840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Olian, who requested Combeferre/ Enjolras and science nerdery. Euclid's "Elements" begin with statements of equality-- and it is only when equality has been established that progress can be made.  Enjolras learns from Combeferre and Combeferre from Enjolras, until they achieve a balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Notions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oilan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oilan/gifts).



> Some notes: I'm reusing the Ange-au-gras pun I had in 'A Passion for the Absolute' because I couldn't think of a better one, but this doesn't take place in the same universe (unless you want it to?). Combeferre is from Annonay because that's where Olian's Combeferre is from.

In the study given over to the _moniteurs_ of dormitories, Thibert called from the window, “Combeferre, the lower forms are fighting in the courtyard again!”

“Savages, the lot of them,” muttered de Sevrigny.

Combeferre sighed and put aside his trigonometry set.

Thibert was standing at the window with Deneuve; both were looking out the window disinterestedly, like twin bookends. They held in place an old and very tired story, one Combeferre was not inclined to look over again. Not when there were the entrance exams to the Polytechnique to think about.

De Sevrigny, who was also focused on the Polytechnique exams, was not interested at all. He tapped the unsharpened end of his pencil against his problem set and said, “Combeferre, what did you get for number three? I’ve got the formula right, but--”

“Lord, is that Ange-au-gras?” asked Deneuve. “The summer was very kind to him.”

“You multiplied instead of squared the hypotenuse,” said Combeferre, squinting at De Sevrigny’s paper. “I think I need new glasses again.”

“If you lot are done ruining your eyesight for the empire,” drawled Thibert, “Ange-au-gras has broken de Cambré’s nose.”

The fight could no longer be put off. Combeferre sighed and unearthed himself from where he had been cocooned in papers, books, and various abandoned parts of his uniform. He put them all back on, successfully transforming himself from harassed _collège royal_ student into dorm _moniteur_ and symbol of authority. He pushed his glasses up his nose, straightened his cravat, and said, “Right. So it’s de Cambré and Ange-au-- sorry. Enjolras, punching each other in the courtyard?”

“Yes,” said Deneuve, in his usual, absent manner. He was destined not to sit exams, but wave perfumed handkerchiefs in salons while uttering bon mots. He practiced now, by saying, “I cannot say who started it, but it looks like Ange-au-gras has ended it.”

“Ange-au-gras is in Cotillard’s dorm,” said de Sevrigny. “Let him deal with it.”

“Cotillard is doing penance for sleeping through mass yesterday,” reported Deneuve. “Poor lad, he’ll never be done saying ‘Ave Maria’s. Ooh, de Cambré couldn’t quite manage to get up that time. One really must get one’s feet underneath one....”

“Is there any point to my leaving my problem set?” asked Combeferre, a little more pointedly. In his experience, boys from age ten to fourteen, or thereabouts, needed to frequently pummel each other to create and then to cement their friendships.

“Oh yes,” said Deneuve, in the same misty voice. “For de Cambré is really displeased about having his nose broken. He seems intent on breaking Ange-au-gras’s, which would really be a crime against nature. De Cambré’s nose could withstand a breaking-- it even gives his face character!-- but to break Ange-au-gras’s nose now would be to deface art.”

Thibert was more pragmatic and said only, “You had better go, Combeferre, or the whole courtyard will be a sea of blood.”

To Combeferre had fallen the duty of keeping peace when other _moniteurs_ were absent. Combeferre still debated within himself what ‘peace’ entailed-- was it an absence of tension because fights were postponed or hidden? or was it an absence of tension because all points of stress had been eradicated?-- but he was naturally inclined towards taking an active role to achieve it. It helped, too, that Combeferre had hit his growth spurt early and was the tallest of the _moniteurs_. He towered over the younger students. They occasionally called him, ‘Your Highness,’ in the half-sneering, half-serious way of boys afraid to show anything but bravado.

“What’s all this then?” Combeferre called out, striding into the courtyard. “Break it up, break it up!”

The crowds parted for him-- not as smoothly as the Red Sea for Moses, though that was the metaphor Combeferre had self-importantly called to mind-- revealing Ange-au-gras, now grown into the angelically beautiful face his mother had no doubt passed onto him. However, his nickname no longer suited him, for all that his blond hair had fluffed into a halo from de Cambré pulling on it-- Enjolras had shot up a foot and lost most of his baby fat. His stillness no longer seemed laziness, but a careful conservation of movement-- for now, Enjolras moved suddenly, to block a wild punch from de Cambré, without apparent effort or preparation.

“It’s savate,” said one of the younger boys, in a twanging, Southern accent. “It’s what the sailors in Marseilles do, Your Highness, fighting against Barbary pirates and the like.”

“It’s fighting during what should be study time,” said Combeferre, disapprovingly.

De Cambré swung his left arm (Enjolras was still holding onto his right), and Enjolras ducked. De Cambré twisted around, lost his balance and landed on the cobblestones.

Enjolras looked down gravely at de Cambré but, before he could say anything, Combeferre had seized both Enjolras and de Cambré by the collars of their coats.

“What,” said Combeferre, making the effort to pull de Cambré up off the ground, “are you doing?”

“Savate,” said Enjolras. It was possible he was joking, Combeferre thought, staring down at Enjolras’s seemingly guileless face, and noting the upward quirk of his lip and the faint lift of his blond eyebrows.

“I was winning,” said de Cambré, surly. Blood was dripping from his nose onto his neckcloth.

“Victors are not generally found face down in the mud,” replied Combeferre. “From your answers I can deduce that the two of you were fighting, and fighting viciously in the courtyard during study period. And why, pray, were you not studying?”

Neither of them answered.

Combeferre shook them both a little, not hard enough to jostle them, but enough to make them aware that they were outmatched. “Well?”

“Monsieur Enjolras took objection to some comments I was making,” de Cambré said, with some difficulty. His nose really did look broken. Combeferre released his collar. “I took objection to his objection.”

“Monsieur Enjolras?” asked Combeferre, releasing Enjolras’s collar.

Enjolras replied, “I have philosophical differences with Monsieur de Cambré.”

Combeferre took quick stock of the courtyard. All the scholarship students were crowded fearfully behind Enjolras. The one in the front was near tears as he tried to put a torn book together.

“You will replace the book you ruined, Monsieur de Cambré,” said Combeferre, sternly, “as soon as you are released from the infirmary.”

De Cambré started, and a number of the richer students, who were destined to own the nicest houses in their small towns, looked visibly alarmed. “How-- how could-- you could not have seen!” de Cambré stammered.

Combeferre glared over the rim of his glasses. “Do not try to tell me what I have and have not seen Monsieur de Cambré. You started the fight, so you must now do penance. To the infirmary. No, give me your handkerchief.” Combeferre had seen the doctor of his own village at work during numerous bar fights, and folded up the handkerchief and pressed it to de Cambré’s nose, feigning an authority he certainly did not feel. It looked as if he had done no harm, at least.

“You will come as well, Monsieur Enjolras,” said Combeferre. “Everyone will get back to their studies, and will not fight in the courtyard again this close to exams.”

De Cambré had to be marched to the infirmary, and roughly steered in the right direction. He was at every moment trying to skulk away, and avoid having everyone know a boy two years his junior had knocked him flat and broken his nose.

Enjolras, however, followed Combeferre. It was impossible to tell if he was content or angry or even confused by his position. For all his changes, Enjolras still had an air of extreme reserve, as if he were indifferent to everything that passed around him. Clearly he was no longer so indifferent, but he still looked as if he was.

Combeferre waited in the doorway of the infirmary while de Cambré was put to bed and scolded by the nun on duty for fighting, and then turned on his heel. Enjolras followed after.

“You should not have been fighting during study hour,” said Combeferre, unsure of what else to say.

“So you have said,” replied Enjolras. Then, with the same barely signaled humor as before: “Does this mean I may fight at other times of the day?”

Combeferre stopped in the hall and looked down at Enjolras, torn between amusement and exasperation. “I would rather you didn’t break noses, but I would not keep you from fighting brutes like de Cambré when they are tormenting the younger students. What was the book he tore?”

“It was Duval’s copy of Newton's _Principia_ ,” replied Enjolras. “Duval cannot afford another.”

Combeferre would have punched de Cambré as well-- not just for tearing a book, which was bad enough, but for tearing the book of the person most likely to be injured by such wanton and random destruction-- which made it harder to lecture Enjolras. With a sigh, Combeferre said, “Come with me. I’ve a spare copy. You can take it to Duval until de Cambré replaces the one he tore.”

For someone so much alone, and so sure, already, of what was right, it was odd that Enjolras did not mind following Combeferre again. But follow he did, and he stood with a politer version of his usual look as Combeferre sorted through the books piled in his trunk, in his cabinet, and around his bed.

Combeferre felt a little awkward, particularly since Enjolras volunteered no conversation, nor seemed to take any interest in his surroundings. But Enjolras was more observant than he seemed and asked, seemingly at random, “Your books seem to be migrating.”

“Hm?”

Enjolras stooped down and grabbed a book that appeared to have made a break from Combeferre’s piles towards the uninhabited space around the next bed. “Chemistry?”  

“Oh, Lavoisier,” said Combeferre, sorting through the pile of books nearest his bed. “Yes, I loaned it to one of Deneuve’s friends, Fleuri. Unsurprisingly, Fleuri decided the bac-en-sciences was not for him after reading three pages of Lavoisier.”

“Lavoisier was a tax collector,” said Enjolras, as if noting the weather.

Combeferre glanced over his shoulder. “He was. And was executed during the Terror for it. A great shame. But do not believe that he was executed because the Republic had no need of scientists. Science flourished then. We owe the metric system to the government of Year II.” Combeferre turned back to his books and said, in a very casual voice, “Though I suppose you’re too young to have fixed opinions--”

“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” Enjolras replied immediately. “Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.”

Combeferre smiled at his books. So Cotillard had been right about the political pamphlets being surreptitiously passed around his dorm. All the other _moniteurs_ had just thought it garden variety smut, not borderline treason, and told Cotillard to ignore it. “And scientists?”

“And Condorcet?” countered Enjolras.

Amused, Combeferre, pulled out his extra copy of _Principia_. “Condorcet’s faction lost, but I think him one of the greatest men of the revolution. You would like him. He fought for the rights of the poor as well.”

Enjolras ducked his head, his fair, frizzy hair sliding forward to mask his expression. Haltingly, he said, “I must... confess... I cannot... I did not... I am not very interested in science.”

‘We’ll see about that,’ thought Combeferre, turning and standing. He leaned against the post of his bed. “Well, consider this, Monsieur Enjolras. Science is built upon certain principles, and goes hand in hand with math and logic. It takes all three to get us moving forward. Have you read Euclid's _Elements_?”

“In class.” Then, seeing Combeferre’s point, Enjolras looked up and said, “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. If equals are added to equals, then the wholes are equal. The whole is greater than the part.”

“A rule of the mathematical reasoning which guides science,” said Combeferre, holding out the _Principia_. “It’s true because it has been tested and tested again, and found to be true. It will always be true, no matter where you find yourself.”

Enjolras took the book uncertainly, frowning a little in thought. “Euclid called it self-evident.”

“And what other truths do we hold to be self-evident?” asked Combeferre.

Enjolras’s smile was slow, but startlingly brilliant. “You have trapped me.”

“Oh no,” said Combeferre, unable to keep from smiling in return. “I’ve built a logical pathway out of the corner you boxed yourself into, from looking at an incomplete picture of the past. You see, Euclid knew we had to begin with equality to go anywhere.”

A silence fell between them-- profound, thought Combeferre. He was feeling rather proud of himself.

At last, Enjolras said, “And science, you say, is the way of finding this universal principle everywhere?”

“Yes, that’s why I’m for the Polytechnique.”

“I thought you were headed for the medical school.”

“Oh?”

“From how you treated de Cambré's nose.”

Combeferre was both pleased and embarrassed. “Oh no, it's the Polytechnique for me.” Enjolras's thoughtful look prompted Combeferre to say, “I'm from Annonay. I want to- I want to build things. I saw the hot air balloons from the Montgolfier workshop when I was a child. I’ve never forgotten what they looked like. To think, that through observation and experimentation, we could defy a law we always thought as fundamental as that of gravity.”

The hot air balloons exercised as powerful an influence over Enjolras as they had Combeferre. Whenever Enjolras saw Combeferre he stopped to ask some question about how the balloons worked, or what one could build using the same principles, or once, quite fancifully, “I wonder, is this what the Greeks thought of when they spoke of dragons?”

Enjolras, when engaged, was bewilderingly charismatic. Combeferre found himself spending almost as much time discussing logical suppositions with Enjolras as he did studying for exams. He was walking through the courtyard, Enjolras on his heels, when he realized that de Cambré had been less satisfied with the consequences of the fight than Combeferre and Enjolras were.

“Well, the ascent is slower than you think,” said Combeferre. “It goes up to--” He looked up around the courtyard to find an appropriate measurement, only to see Duval hanging off the side of the building. “Uh, where to Duval is, in about thirty seconds. Slow progress.” Then, after a pause: “Why is Duval hanging off the water spout?”

The window nearest the terrified and now hyperventilating Duval slammed shut, cutting off a round of ugly, raucous laughter.

“Enjolras, go find the other _moniteurs_ , will you?” asked Combeferre, with a sigh. “And if on the way back, you should happen to run into de de Cambré, recall that all of us will be in the courtyard getting down Duval.”

Enjolras nodded and raced off.

“Don’t panic,” Combeferre called up to Duval, only realizing what an utterly useless thing that was to say after he’d said it.

The other _moniteurs_ of the dorms came spilling out into the courtyard, in similar states of bewilderment and confusion. Deneuve was giggly in the face of so absurd a situation, but this only made him slightly less useless than usual.

“We should escalate this up to the Jesuits,” said de Sevrigny.

Cotillard grimaced. “Do we really? We’ll all be telling our beads until Christmas for letting it happen.”

“Your Highness, is that Duval?” squeaked one of the first years.

Combeferre took off his glasses and began polishing them with his pocket handkerchief. “Unfortunately.”

“Can you get him down?”

“Well,” said Combeferre, dryly, “My highness is not sufficient to reach Duval.”

“How did he even get up there?” asked de Sevrigny.

“De Cambré,” said Combeferre. “Who else?”

Thibert scowled. “That little snot. If we don’t turn him into the Jesuits, I’ll wallop him myself. I’ve a translation of Ovid due in an hour! I hope you sic’d Enjolras on him, Combeferre.”

Combeferre evaded the question with an, “I have no idea where Enjolras went after getting you. The question is-- do we get him down from here, or through the window?”

But fortunately, Enjolras had anticipated them. The window opened and Enjolras stuck his golden head through it.

Combeferre cupped his hands around his mouth. “Enjolras, can you reach him?”

Enjolras tried but his fingers only brushed Duval’s coat.

“His coat’s ripping,” observed Cotillard. “Hell. We can’t get up to him in time--”

“F equals mg,” muttered Combeferre. Then, a little louder: “Duval, how much do you weigh?”

Duval squeaked out an answer.

“Ah-- that should-- Deneuve, your dorm is closest. Send one of your students to fetch a bedsheet.”

With a _moniteur_ at each corner, they managed to hold the sheet out taught enough so that when Duval’s coat finally ripped, he bounced off the sheet a little and then landed a little softer in the center of the sheet.

“Your science saves people,” said Enjolras, with so brilliant a smile Combeferre felt momentarily dazzled.

It was a phrase that stuck with Combeferre as much as the hot air balloons had. He found himself saying it many years later over a cafe table. Enjolras was now as tall as Combeferre, and Combeferre was now deeply unhappy. When he had first donned his Polytechnicien’s uniform, it had been with a sense of enormous pride. His colleagues were all his equals-- in intelligence, in aptitude, in liberalism-- and yet now he felt suffocated by by the black cloth trimmed in red-- trapped by it and all it represented.

“My science saves people,” said Combeferre, “just as you said. I can’t... I can’t quite....” He frowned, looked away from Enjolras’s steady, calm gaze. The gap of three years that had mattered so much at boarding school no longer mattered quite so much in the broader world of Paris. They were on equal footing, suddenly. Combeferre felt off-kilter. And yet it was a pleasant sensation. Paris was full of oddities.

“You dislike science that harms people,” said Enjolras.

Combeferre looked up, ruefully. “I can’t stand it. It’s a truth about myself that I hadn’t known before coming to Paris.”

Enjolras smiled in a way that suggested he had known this about Combeferre.

Combeferre looked back down at the remnants of their dinner. He felt warm-- almost as if he was about to start blushing. It was the strange discombobulation of finding oneself on equal footing to someone one had considered a pupil, he told himself. “I can’t keep learning how to take all the great grand truths of the universe, the formulas and mathematics that-- that men of science have complied across languages and centuries, and use them to destroy my fellow man. I used the equation for a falling body to save a boy when I was in _collège_. Now, I am using it  learn how to kill men I had never met before.”

“That is not your way,” said Enjolras, quietly.

Combeferre looked up again. In the candlelight, Enjolras looked to have finally grown into his looks. Deneuve would have said the ancient masters had finished their carving, but Combeferre could only think to say, “You’ve always been perceptive.”

“I’ve had you to thank for it,” Enjolras replied. His smile, if anything, had grown more dazzling in its force. To be the recipient of such a smile was a gift. “Combeferre, perhaps you might now allow me to give you advice?”

“I should hope all this,” gesturing to his red and black uniform “--would not intimidate you into forgetting all progress must begin with equality. I will always take the advice of my friends.”

“Quit the Polytechnique.”

Combeferre blinked.

“Quit the Polytechnique,” Enjolras repeated, seeing that he had now got Combeferre’s attention, “and join the medical school.”

After so long on one path, Combeferre had almost forgotten the others. He fussed with the loose top button of his uniform jacket. “Well I---”

“You are not happy,” said Enjolras. “There are other schools. There are other ways of using science to advance mankind. You do not have to stay on this path simply because it was the one you chose first. There are many still open to you.”

Combeferre produced all the tired arguments he had worn thin by wrapping about himself, to try and render himself immobile, to keep himself from wandering away from a life and a school he had found strangely incompatible with all the things he felt were right. Enjolras calmly and skillfully tore them all to pieces.

At the end, Combeferre said, slumping into his chair, “You have me cornered.”

“I’ve built a logical pathway out of the corner you boxed yourself into,” replied Enjolras. The argument won, he counted out money for their dinner and rose, clasping Combeferre’s hand when Combeferre made noises about returning to his school’s campus before the gate was locked for the evening. “Friend Combeferre,” he said, seriously, gently, but with that same inner certainty of self that had always characterized him, “do not convince yourself that since you are unhappy now, you must always be unhappy. Part of equality is balance-- you cannot move forward unbalanced between your thoughts and your actions.”

“I--” Combeferre looked at their linked hands. Enjolras’s fingers tightened over his own. Old friendships transformed into the strangest things in the crucible of Paris. What mysterious alchemy.

“If you need to escape from the Polytechnique, you are always welcome,” said Enjolras. “Have you my address?”

Of all the thoughts, images, and phrases that lingered in Combeferre’s mind, Enjolras was responsible for most of them. Combeferre could not sleep that evening, and, at two in the morning, found himself lighting a candle and consulting his pocket map of Paris, tracing the route from the Polytechnique to Enjolras’s apartment. The next day at school Combeferre was mindlessly leveling his gun at the target range, instantaneously calculating the trajectory of the bullet from his carbine when suddenly he heard one of the students next to him say in disgust, “And now once we graduate, we’ll all be sent to Algeria!”

Combeferre lowered his gun. “What?”

The other student aimed and missed his target. “Blast! This gun pulls to the right. But you heard me, Combeferre. The dey of Algiers has slapped our ambassador. We are going to war.”

“With Algeria?” asked Combeferre, appalled. “There’s no point in that. We have so much to do at home.”

“Charles X wants an empire as much as Napoleon did,” said the student on Combeferre’s left. “At least under Napoleon we might have been Marshals. It was more of a meritocracy then. Now we’re just part of the machinery of empire. We shall be sent to die of yellow fever while leveling walls in Algiers.”

The first student who spoke shook his head. “It’s not right, us being sent out to kill a lot of Algerians. There’s no benefit to it for anyone.”

“How can this be justified?” asked Combeferre.

“It’s a matter of honor,” said the student to his left, sneeringly. “A fig for honor! It’s just rapacity. I could kill a man in defense, but in order to claim what’s rightfully his? No thank you.”

Combeferre looked at his target and at his carbine. He felt suddenly sick. He walked away, put his carbine on the rack with the others and began walking. And walking. He walked the route he had traced earlier that morning, until he came to the porter’s lodge of Enjolras’s building and realized he had walked away in the middle of lessons, with all his classmates asking him if he was feeling well.

“I’m not,” Combeferre muttered. When the porter looked inquisitive, Combeferre said merely, “I’m here for Monsieur Enjolras.”

Combeferre took the stairs two at a time, and scarcely waited for Enjolras’s quiet, “Enter,” before bursting through the door.

Enjolras was sitting in the open window of his apartment, Rousseau’s _Social Contract_ angled to the light. His whole figure was outlined in sunlight, from the golden hair in waves down to his collar, to the graying hems of his black coat. He put the book down upon seeing Combeferre and stood at once saying, in concern, “Friend Combeferre, are you--”

Words failed him. Combeferre nearly tottered over and leaned heavily against Enjolras.

Enjolras said, softly, “It’s not shameful, it’s brave. I am proud to call you my friend.”

“I-- it’s--”

“You have done what you felt to be right,” said Enjolras, firmly. 

“I have probably lost my place by leaving like this,” said Combeferre, standing up and drying his eyes on the sleeve of his coat.

“You lost the corner you had backed yourself into,” said Enjolras.

"I do not know if I have a place any longer."

“You have a place here. You will always have a place here." It was said with such sincerity, Combeferre could not doubt it. All of its implications were reassuring, soothing anxieties Combeferre had forgotten he had carried with him. Enjolras continued on, "I was always used to be guided by you, Combeferre, but if you will let me--”

He extended his hand.

Combeferre took it. “Willingly.”


End file.
